Friday, June 06, 2008

Tomorrow I'll be moderating a panel at Green Acre Baha'i School as part of a day long Race Unity Symposium. I'll be blogging about the symposium next week but wanted to give my readers a chance to participate "virtual" in this discussion. The basis of the panel will be a piece from USA Today that was published in February of this year. I'll include the entire piece here for your review:

By Mohammad Ali Salih

I wasn’t ready for my son’s harsh words when our family went out for dinner last week. We were talking about the elections and, specifically, the competition between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

I asked my son, a twenty-something Democrat and Obama supporter, two questions. “Why do you favor Obama?” With his mother and two sisters listening, he offered the usual arguments about “change,” “unity” and that Obama didn’t vote for the Iraq war. Then I asked: “Are you supporting Obama because he is biracial like you?” His angry response: “I knew you were going to ask about race. ... And I understand that, because of your age (I am in my 60s) and your background (an immigrant from Sudan). But, Dad, you need to wake up to the new thinking about race in America.” He added, “It is not about being racial; it is not about being biracial; it is about being post-racial.”

I twice repeated the question. My wife, a white Southern conservative Republican, intervened: “Don’t you understand what your son has told you? Why do you want him to think the way you think?”

My college daughter agreed with her brother, but the high-schooler didn’t want to talk about race or politics but about Cloverfield and Hannah Montana.

I have always wanted my children to be proud of their mixed race. Since they were young, I’ve read them books about biracials, told them to write “biracial” whenever they filled out forms and paid special attention to the other biracial kids they hung out with.

Before teaching them about their identity, I had to find mine. When I came to Washington, D.C., in 1980, I was ambivalent about the racial divisions. After I became a U.S. citizen 10 years later, though, I started searching for my identity. I didn’t want to be part of the white guilt/black victimization syndrome. It took me 10 more painful years to realize that the color of my skin doesn’t dictate my identity. I found faith in Islam as the core of my identity. That and being an American.

Yet I didn’t think about the contradiction that, although I had “liberated” myself from having race as part of my identity, I wanted my children to belong not only to one race but to two — until my son’s lecture. His message is now clear: not only that race doesn’t matter, but mixed race also doesn’t matter. And the new “post-race” thinking could be equivalent to “no race.”

A country without racial divisions. What a concept.

Mohammad Ali Salih is a correspondent based in Washington, D.C., for major Arabic newspapers and magazines in the Middle East.

Now you get to respond to the same questions that will be addressed to the panelists tomorrow:

Having read the story detailed in this column, please respond to the following questions:

1.If you were speaking with the son from this story how would you respond to his opinions about race? Would you agree or disagree with him. Why?

2.If you were speaking with the father from this story how would you respond to his perspective on race? Would you agree or disagree with him? Why?

3.The father mentions finding Islam as the core of his identity rather than “skin color”. How important is religion/spirituality in addressing issues of race and racism in American society?

I hope you'll join in this conversation by leaving lots of comments and engaging with each other, especially if you haven't commented on this blog before. I look forward to hearing what you all think. I also encourage you to engage in this discussion with other people in your life and share what you learn from those discussions.

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Who Is the Author?

Phillipe Copeland is author of the blog, "Baha'i Thought" which offers commentary on issues of religion, society, and culture based on the teachings of the Baha'i Faith. "Baha'i Thought" received a 2010 "Award of Excellence in Internet Communication" from the Religion Communicator's Council, a "Best of the Web" award from "The Daily Reviewer", and is featured on the Religion News Writer's Association website. Mr. Copeland is a contributing scholar to "State of Formation", a multi-author blog founded by the Journal for Interreligious Dialogue and run in partnership with Andover Newton Theological Seminary, Hebrew College, and The World Parliament of Religions. His columns are featured on "Peace Next", the social networking site of the World Parliament of Religions and Blogcritics Magazine. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a Ph.D candidate in social work at Simmons College in Boston, MA, and Adjunct Faculty in Social Work at Boston University.

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The mission of Baha'i Thought is to promote the creation of a new civilization through the use of new media. It seeks to accomplish this through contributing to social discourse regarding issues of religion, society and culture in light of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah.

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Commentary offered on Baha'i Thought does not in any way reflect an authoritative or official view of the Baha'i Faith or any Baha'i Institution. It is neither more nor less that the public expression of the private thoughts of the author in his efforts to understand the various meanings of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah for issues of religion, society and culture. You read them at your own risk. For an official Baha'i presence on the web, please visit http://www.bahai.org/ or http://www.bahai.us/.

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